


Not Needed, So Much as Wanted

by madridistagoblue



Series: Seirin Week 2015 [1]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Gen, Seirin Week 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 10:59:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4345961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madridistagoblue/pseuds/madridistagoblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When he entered Seirin High for the first time, Furihata was resigned for life to continue as it always had. He would join the library committee, just like in junior high, and once again make friends who would keep him entertained for three years before disappearing from his life forever. However, his unfounded optimism urged him to try something new; to attempt, against all rationality, to become the best in something. He wanted to prove to himself that he could be needed for something …or by someone."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Needed, So Much as Wanted

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day One of Seirin Week on Tumblr. The prompt for Day 1 was Teammates/Teamwork.

The first time Furihata Kouki felt like he wasn't needed was in second grade.

He was at a park not far from school, chasing after classmates as fast as his small legs could carry him. The sound of their laughter urged Furihata to run faster, taunted by the naïve hope that catching up to the others might allow him to partake in their joy. He stumbled over to where the sprint had finally ended and waved towards the pack of boys formed in a tight circle. "Hey!" he panted, bringing his aching arm back down to his side. His greeting was met not with words but with momentary glances from the interrogating eyes of seven year old boys. The children remained bound in their arrangement, none of them moving to allow Furihata entrance into the circular formation. 

"Hey, guys, let's play football!" one of them interjected -- a tall boy with black hair, dressed in the blue kit of the Japanese National Team. He lifted his arm to reveal a football, immediately garnering the attention of the others. He held himself tall as he pointed at the boys in the circle and directed them towards one side of the grass or the other. "Hiroshi, you'll be team one. Shigeru, team two."

"Can I play too?" Furihata interjected, inching closer to the circle. For a moment, he captured the attention of the boys' leader, who turned towards the source of the noise.

"Ah…Kouki," he laughed nervously. His eyes turned away from Furihata towards his peers, breaking his confident façade.  "You see…there's six of us," he continued, pointing to the pack surrounding him. "Seven's an odd number. Your team wouldn't be fair."

"Oh…" Furihata replied, his eyes looking down to study his mud-covered shoes. He was disappointed, but it felt wrong to argue. He wouldn't want to make the game unfair. "Ok," he agreed softly.

"Sorry, Kouki," the other boy replied. "We just don't _need_ you today. Maybe tomorrow."

It was a tantalizing promise that made Furihata look back up and with a small nod respond, "Ok."

But the "tomorrow" the boy spoke of never came.

 

Furihata held out hope that someone would need him in Junior High. If nothing else, he was among the circle this time, his legs crossed in front of him as he sat with classmates from the library committee on the carpeted floor.  

"You know what I think?" a girl with medium length brown hair and an energetic voice pipped in. "Wouldn't it be fun if we all went on a trip together!?"

"Yeah!" the boy next to Furihata chimed in agreement. "We could all take the train somewhere."

"That's a great idea!" Furihata added with a wide smile. He had always loved watching the scenery pass by through train windows, hearing the hum of the car passing over the rails, and reading a book or collecting his thoughts over the course of a peaceful journey. Though Furihata was generally quiet around his friends, the anticipation collecting inside of him pushed him towards a newfound confidence. "I could help plan the trip!" he interjected. "I know all about the train system!"

"We know," the girl who had suggested the idea sighed in disgust. "You only talk about it all the time."

"We can look the train times up online anyway," the boy next to Furihata added. "We don't _need_ you to tell us. Just because you're so obsessed with trains doesn't mean you know everything."

Furihata's smile faded, the pleasant images in his mind replaced by a sudden anxiety that he had irritated his friends. "I'm sorry," he apologized softly. Part of him wasn't sure what he was sorry for, if anything, but clearly his penchant for talking about trainspotting was troubling to the others. If it was such a nuisance, he ought not to mention it at all.  

Furihata never did go on the trip with his friends.

 

By the time Furihata entered his first year of high school, he had accepted that he would never be needed by anyone. He had no extraordinary talents to speak of, his grades were only average, and, moreover, he still was obsessed with trainspotting, music, manga, and the other things his friends from junior high had teased him about. He hadn't spoken to any of them since graduation, despite the fact that they had taken pictures linked arm-in-arm each with perfectly posed smiles.

His last memory of junior high was, perhaps, the worst, and yet it carried with it a small hope that forced Furihata to hold onto the memory in spite of its discomfort.  Since his first year, Furihata had been enamored of Tanaka Haruka, a fellow member of the library committee who was everything he wished to be: respected, assertive, and unafraid of speaking her mind. After three years of watching her talk with his other friends, trying to edge his ways into their conversations without making his intentions clear, he had finally decided to confess his feelings. Seeing as it was graduation day, if Tanaka were to reject him, he would never be forced to make her acquaintance again. It was cowardly, Furihata thought, but better than never giving himself a chance.

"Uh…Haru-chan," he asked when they were finally alone after the ceremony. "D-do you mind if I ask you a-a question?"

"Very well, Furihata-kun," she replied plainly. She looked at him expressionlessly, but Furihata felt as though her naturally assertive gaze was judging him before he even began to speak.

"Well, uh, Haru-chan. I was, um, I was w-wondering," Furihata began.

"What is it, Furihata-kun?" she asked hastily. "I have a few friends I need to go see before they leave, so I would appreciate if you asked quickly."

"Haru-chan I like you!" Furihata blurted out, blushing immediately as soon as he realized that he had said the words with such little care.

"Oh," Tanaka replied. Her expression did not change. "I'm sorry, Furihata-kun. I cannot return your feelings."

Furihata looked up at her, trying not to let tears well up in his eyes. He had expected rejection and should not let himself cry over such an expected thing as this. Yet, somehow, knowing that this was coming did not ease the pain.

"It's not you," Tanaka added, hurriedly. "It's just, I don't _need_ a boyfriend. I'm already too busy with my studies."

Though the qualification to her statement had been kind, it somehow made Furihata feel worse. Especially given what he knew of Tanaka Haruka.

"But, Haru-chan," Furihata said, trying to keep a level voice. "You're always reading _shoujo_ novels and taking with your friends about romance."

"Oh," Tanaka giggled uncomfortably. "Well, I guess I like to imagine that one day I'll meet a boy who will change my mind. You understand. Someone so amazing that I'll fall in love, with no choice over the matter," she paused for a moment, making a puzzled face that Furihata assumed meant she was racking her brain for more to say. "Perhaps, if you were...the best in Japan at something…I would change my mind," she finished.

"The best in Japan?" Furihata repeated softly to himself. A taunting feeling of hope began to grow inside him that he couldn't suppress despite his best efforts to chastise himself for the thought. Was there still a chance to win Haru-chan's heart after all?

"I'm sorry, Furihata-kun," Tanaka interrupted his musing. "I must be going now." With a small bow, she turned, leaving Furihata standing alone and feeling one again unneeded, yet still graced with a spark of childish hope.

 

When he entered Seirin High for the first time, Furihata was resigned for life to continue as it always had. He would join the library committee, just like in junior high, and once again make friends who would keep him entertained for three years before disappearing from his life forever. However, his unfounded optimism urged him to try something new; to attempt, against all rationality, to become the best in something. He wasn't fully sure that he wanted to do it for Haru-chan anymore, though that continued to be his excuse. He wanted to prove to himself that he could be needed for something …or by someone.

Furihata's hope seemed so distant that was hard for him to believe the change in his life that occurred almost immediately after joining the Seirin Basketball Club. The first difference he noticed was after practice, when Kawahara and Fukuda told him they _needed_ to play him the new album they discovered while searching through vintage records. Soon after, during a practice match, Tsuchida refused to let any of their teammates sit on the space on the bench that Furihata had momentarily vacated, since Furihata _needed_ that seat.  Combined with team dinners, training camps, and daily practices, Furihata began to find himself not only sitting in a circle with his teammates, but developing a voice within the cohort, telling suggestions and observations that were respected and valued. His family seemed to notice something as well. His mother commented that Furihata seemed happy at school, and his older brother encouraged him to keep playing basketball.

Furihata found his room slowly transforming due to the influence of the team. Pictures of junior high graduation, of him and his colleagues with faces that looked stoic despite their smiles, were taken out of frames, replaced by candid snapshots of fist bumps and warm embraces. The white spaces on his walls were filled with cutouts from _Basketball Monthly_. The calendar over his desk -- with pictures of trains -- was covered in red ink marking matches, training camps, and lunch dates with teammates.

His newfound love of basketball was not without its struggles. Seirin's loss in the Inter-High brought Furihata an evening of tears and multiple sleepless nights. Even so, the lead up to the Winter Cup only solidified the changes he felt in his relationship with others. The new (or perhaps old) center, Kiyoshi Teppei, encouraged him to strengthen his dribbling with his left hand, reminding Furihata that he never knew when he team would _need_ him to step in and play. His fellow point guard, Izuki, agreed with Kiyoshi's assessment, smiling and reminding him that "if he couldn't dribble with his left, he'd be left behind."

The matches began, each more intense than the next. Despite how lucky Furihata felt to be a part of Seirin's team, he started to wonder when it would fall apart. There were days he approached the locker room with hesitation, unsure if his teammates would really say hello when he walked in. Other times he wondered if the starters on the court could even hear his cheering from the bench. By the time of the Winter Cup semifinals, Furihata had never played in an official match, and he doubted he'd be given the chance -- no matter how many times people now told him he was _needed_.

_Needed_. The word still had a pleasant ring in his ears, but it felt forced. Would anyone truly notice if Furihata were to get up off the bench and walk off the team forever? Would one less voice shouting encouraging messages really change anything? He tried never to ponder this question too long, afraid of the conclusion he would arrive at. Yet, the answer likely didn't matter anyway. He wanted to give his all for this team; afraid as he was that this happiness he felt was an illusion. He could never abandon them, no matter how small his contributions.

 

Furihata was sitting on the bench, watching as his teammates struggled to keep their game mentally in-check against Kaijou, when he suddenly heard Coach Riko's voice call, "Furihata, you're _needed_."  The back-up point guard looked up, legs shaking, eyes wide, and pointed a finger towards himself. He was…entering the game? He stood up, unable to calm his trembling frame or slow the racing pitter-patter of his heart. He could barely breathe -- let alone step forward -- and no sooner had he made it on to the court, he fell flat on its hardwood -- face first.

Somehow, he managed to find a kind of rhythm after that, and by the time he returned to the bench, Koga was embracing him around the shoulders, informing him in a voice too loud for how close Koga was to his ears that Mitobe _needed_ to say congratulations. The quiet power forward placed a single hand on Furihata's shoulder. And, for once, Furihata understood.

 

Despite the unfamiliar closeness that Furihata felt with his Seirin teammates, he wasn't used to having others confide their secrets in him. His library committee mates had occasionally spoken hushed words about crushes between giggles and fleeting glances, but that was the most private information he had ever known. When Kuroko asked to tell the entire team the story of his time at Teikou, Furihata's heart began to race. Knowing that Kuroko was about to share something about the hardest moments of his life made Furihata empathetically upset, yet he also felt privileged. He listened to the story with understanding, knowing only too well how it felt to always be on the outside. He hoped that one day Kuroko might listen to his story too.

 

It was all of this history which brought Furihata to where he was now, tears narrowly escaping his closed eyes as he stood on the court, caught somewhere between shock and ecstasy. Opening his eyes, he took in the overwhelming sight. Confetti was streaming down from the ceiling, small golden flakes getting caught in his messy brown bangs. Fukuda was grabbing him suddenly from behind and Kawahara yelled something that he couldn't quite understand amidst the cheers of the crowd and Kagami's excited roar.

"Thank you all!" Kagami cried, his intense red eyes scanning the entire Seirin team after he had shared an affectionate and enthused tackle hug with his shadow. "It was all of you who made it possible for me to enter the second level of the zone today. I _needed_ you all."

It was a moment later that Furihata was pulled aside.

 

"Hyuuga-senpai?" Furihata asked, as his captain placed a hand on his shoulder. He turned to face Seirin's leader and wiped the tears from his eyes, so as to look more presentable.

"Furihata," Hyuuga replied in a serious tone that caused the point guard's legs to shake for just a moment, before a smile graced the captain's lips. "I wanted to say thank you. We won by only one point today. I know it wasn't easy, going up against Akashi, but you managed to score points that we _needed_ in the end. I don't mean to pull you away from the celebration. I simply wanted to acknowledge what you did today, as your captain. We really _needed_ you today."

Furihata felt tears returning to his eyes as he smiled, but he did nothing to hold them back, even in front of his captain.

"Thank you, captain --" Furihata began, but was quickly interrupted.

"Hyuuga! Furihata!" Koga yelled from center court, where he was surrounded by the rest of the Seirin team. "Another group hug, get over here!"

Furihata exchanged one last shy smile with his captain, before dashing towards the rest of his team. As he fell into their tight, slightly painful, but fully loving embrace, he let Hyuuga's words replay in his mind.

_We really needed you today_.

 

As the evening blurred into a sea of black jerseys, golden confetti, chants, applause, and thank yous, Furihata was hit with a sudden realization.

It wasn't that he had desired to be needed, so much as to be wanted.

Here, in the embrace of those who reminded him that he was always needed -- not just in the Winter Cup finals, but for an encouraging smile off the bench, or a quick bite to eat at Maji Burger -- he felt it at last.

He was wanted by these people whose arms were tangled sloppily around him.

No longer did he trust in small and fleeting sparks of naïve hope to guide him; the promise of a tomorrow or a second chance that never came. Now he was strengthened by true faith in the people beside him:

His teammates,

His friends.


End file.
